The further we get into 2025 the more people are becoming obsessed with sleep. This is probably the rectifying of the complete disregard that has been shown to it in previous decades.
I can remember certain public figures boasting that they needed little sleep (as if that was a good thing) and subsequently it being discovered that they were making up that sleep through napping.
What is currently missing is the configuring of work practices to respect sleep. Putting health before GDP would send a very significant message here.
There also seems to be little requirement for taking noise into account when designing and building housing, which has its own consequences. As is usual in such circumstances recommendations are around purchasing noise cancelling technology rather than ensuring houses are not exposed to excessive noise. (For example, before building them in the first place). Putting health before profits would send a significant message here.
If you’re in the, no doubt large, group of people exposed to excessive noise when you’re trying to sleep, I have found that having a noise playing of your own choosing can help. It depends on the noise and when it is happening. For example, a one-off sound at 2am, from a loud car say, can disrupt the rest of your sleep. A consistent noise that you grow used to through exposure may be less disruptive.
In any case, I have found as one gets older sensitivity to noise, when sleeping, seems to increase. The only way to react seems to be to take action yourself. Noise cancelling headphones can help. Although I find frequent use of these really hurts the ears eventually. A back track such as white noise (several generators are available) or, my favourite, a nice relaxing video can also be positive.
Statements that older people need less sleep have not proven correct in my case. I get less sleep, I am more tired, so I wonder how universally such findings apply.
In the drive to provide more relaxing videos for you, here is another blog item on exactly that subject.
Today’s video is already part of a playlist; however, it comes from a channel that I have regularly exploited for material so I have to be careful to avoid duplication in this area. If you spot duplication, do let me know.
The Exam for Ankle & Foot Pain – Stanford Medicine 25
As we have previously established this channel produces videos of consistent quality and as we would expect each video comes with a descriptive set of notes:
“19 Jul 2018 Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam
This video is brought to you by the Stanford Medicine 25 to teach you the common causes of foot and ankle pain and how to diagnose them by the physical exam.
The Stanford Medicine 25 program for bedside medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine aims to promote the culture of bedside medicine to make current and future clinicians and other healthcare provides better at the art of physical diagnosis and more confident at the bedside of their patients.
Comments are permitted and, as expected, ASMR fans have been here before me. This probably means it is a good choice of video (although some less high-quality ones sometimes pass this test).
It is just less than seven and a half minutes, so not huge in terms of videos we have covered previously.
Of course, there is that bugbear of any ASMR video fan – the musical startup. Someday I will come across the command to dictate the start time of the video and such music will be banished forever.
This one features Dr Brinda Christopher again with whom we are well familiar.
Dr Christopher as we have established before has an excellent voice for such videos. It is great that we are re-acquainting ourselves with her. Chad is the patient (again).
There is some background noise (air conditioning again perhaps).
There are so many medical terms in this one that I am not going to attempt to define them – I’m guessing that you are not here to learn how to perform an ankle examination. If you are what a pleasant surprise and welcome.
The video is part of the Stanford Medicine 25 channel where there are eighty-five videos. I have no doubt that we will be sampling many more of these in the future.
The video we have just seen is part five of an eight-part playlist. In order to avoid covering areas that I will have covered before, I will limit myself to reviewing the remaining two videos in this playlist. Future blog items will catch up on any missing areas I am certain.
The Exam for Knee Pain – Stanford Medicine 25
There is startup music of course, comments and notes as before and the same two participants – so far, so consistent. At just less than eight minutes it is also of a similar length to the last one.
The great thing about a professional video is that if you liked it you may well like videos from the same provider. Many student videos we have seen can be great, only for the next video from the same source to be totally unsuitable.
The Exam for Shoulder Pain – Stanford Medicine 25
As before, comments indicate ASMR fans are all over this, and we have proven that they have good taste. The only way these could be improved would be to remove startup music and put a bomb in the air conditioning.
But in comparison to some noises we have heard in other videos, this is minor quibble area.
One great aspect is a complete absence of loud equipment clunks, and bangs, which other videos seem unable to avoid. We have the same two participants here and to ensure I do not overlap with material from the same channel covered previously I will make this the last video of this blog item.
This one is a little less than ten and a half minutes so quite a bit longer than the two previous ones. However you may find, like me, that you do not notice the extra time.
I wish you well in your drive to get more sleep.
The Stanford medicine playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
Re-reading some sleep advice that I had knocking around, I notice that one is supposed to sleep the same number of hours every night and if you don’t, then there will be a reckoning to come.
Added to this is the requirement that you go to bed at the same time, every night and awaken at the same time, every morning.
That sounds a great discipline and I would love to recommend it. However, I find myself utterly jiggered by close of play on a Friday and I take to bed and sleep till the gods have made off to find another planet (or for a very long time anyway).
I always found that this was my little weekly restorative and I’m sure that for many years it was. However, it does not seem to be as effective any longer and I am moderately convinced that is to do with ageing.
In the absence of changing my sleep pattern completely (and for those of you who also feel unable to do so), I’ll stick to finding restful videos that may encourage you to make the most of whatever sleep you are able to get. If you do find yourself crashing on a Friday night, desperate to make up for any lost time during the week, you now know I will not be judging you.
Today’s video is, again, taken from that deep well of videos which seemingly has no end on YouTube; the student assessment video.
Head-to-Toe Physical Assessment
The medical professional is Vivian and from the start has a very good voice. Vivian has on a top which identifies the college where presumably this is filmed but, sadly, I cannot make out what it says.
There are no notes with the video; there is one unhelpful comment and only two subscribers. This is either a journey to something new or a warning that this is not going to be that useful.
In fact, the sound is quite muted. The air conditioning is ever present (as we are used to by now) the patient is Lindsey Preston (probably misspelled), D.o.B. 03/03/97, whichever date system you use. I make that March.
There are the usual questions officially designed to check the person vs their record, but of course no record exists so it is, as usual, acting.
Lindsey (I’m sticking with that spelling now) announces that she is at Valencia Memorial Hospital (well I’m pretty sure that is what she says – it is a bit quick). Lindsey has a top on with the same appearance as that worn by Vivian it appears to say Valencia College nursing which might confirm that.
The tops worn by the nurses on that website do appear similar if in a different colour.
The college of course has it’s own YouTube channel.
Apart from the air conditioning there are no nasty intrusive noises. Vivian even seems able to move equipment around without the loud clangs that have punctuated some videos now in the Procrastination Pen archive list.
Her approach is methodical and gentle.
The video is just a short one at a little over six minutes.
The channel is Vivian Tran it contains just this one video uploaded in 2018 which is about the same date that it was filmed.
So, I’m sorry people, but that is all for this time.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
A week in which I have had sympathy for those who are struggling to sleep and, in which, I have been quite dependent on the playlist for a restful breathing space. I’ve been active in weeding activity every time I happened across a more jarring moment.
I am researching the idea of trimming videos without actually hosting them. I haven’t made progress yet, but I live in hope that I may soon despatch funky startup music.
Today’s video another one properly designed for tuition of future medical professionals. Not the longest we’ve seen at a bit more than sixteen and a half minutes.
Neurological Assessment
There are moments of humour at the start including knocking on a surface to mimic entry. The patient is introduced as Mr Hoffman – which probably isn’t the correct spelling. The medical professional “Nancy” is from Harper College.
As we’d expect Harper College has its own channel the duty of which, I suspect, is to tell you that Harper College is fantastic, which no doubt it is.
Our purpose though, is the pursuit of restful videos. This one starts well by ignoring funky startup music. The Air conditioning noises are de rigueur for this sort of thing now, it would almost be rude to have a video without them.
Surprisingly for a professional video, there are no notes at all. There are plenty of comments, lots of strange comments as expected, but no obvious ASMR comments. Sometimes this does not bode well for the video.
Nancy does not have a classically restful voice; in fact, Mr Hoffman seems to have the better voice here. Thankfully, Mr Hoffman gets a fair amount of talk time in this one. The air conditioning is obviously a session musician paid by the volume, it is more intrusive even than we have come to expect.
The president at the time is Obama, so sometime between 2009 and 2017. The video was posted in 2015, so possibly shortly after it was filmed.
I think he refers to the medical professional as Nancy Haborector, that is so unlikely to be correct but it is what it sounds like. I think it is more likely Nancy Haberichter apologies Nancy if you are reading this.
Mr Hoffmann also talks to “Amy” who is behind the camera. That is a slightly off-putting event, in that I am used to dismissing the camera person from consciousness as if the filming was automatic and the interactions just between two. Amy, from that point onwards, makes a few contributions.
There are loud equipment noises in this as well.
Watch out around fifteen and a half minutes. Mr Hoffmann is obviously extremely ticklish and eventually the camera woman (Amy), Mr Hoffmann and Nancy are all taken up with laughter which fortunately brings the video to a conclusion.
The channel is Nursing Assessment and Skills, there are thirty-two videos and no playlists at all. So the normal mechanism of thinning out videos under review by using a convenient playlist is not available.
It turns out that Nancy is in the majority of such videos and Mr Hoffman is in a fair subset of them. So thinning by that mechanism isn’t looking too great either.
I notice that it appears that Mr Hoffmann is in thirteen of the videos and this is just too many for one post. So arbitrarily I am going to limit this post to three videos and we can come back again in a future blog post.
Basic Patient Assessment
This has the same two participants and is just over fifteen minutes. However, it is much more recent and it has notes “8 Jan 2019
This is the basic assessment that nursing students will perform at the bedside. You will notice that the lights go out when upper extremity assessment is started. So just keep watching. Nurses must be able to adjust the plan when necessary.”
Again, there are a variable set of comments around the video, but no obvious ASMR comments.
Here the volume seems to be more appropriate, and the air conditioning is keeping it in reserve for the last music set. This time, Mr Hoffman introduces himself as Mr Reagan. I’m used to him as Hoffman and so he will stay Mr Hoffman for this article.
Nancy seems to be more muted as well, which actually works, and this instantaneously feels a better video for us than the last one.
Again, they are filming at the Harper Hospital, the president is Donald Trump who was president from 2017 to 2021. The video was posted in 2019 which could therefore have been shortly after it was filmed.
General Survey
This is a whole lot different. Firstly the setting – domestic not hospital, secondly length – the video is just two minutes long. No notes, no ASMR related comments. There is relatively little background noise but it starts a bit loud.
However, it is amazing how much influence that air conditioning noise has. It is easy to disregard how loud it is until it isn’t there and then I really want it to be absent all the time.
Although short, this video is the best in terms of restful of the three in this post. In the end it might be the only one to survive the regular weeding process. We shall see.
The Nursing Assessment playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
I have now been listening to the Procrastination Pen playlist for so long that I have realised that some elements of it are appearing in my dreams. Recently, I was arguing with a person I work with (in the dream) over their rights to reuse the entire text from a video from Moran Core, having convinced myself that it had been lifted wholesale and reused for an education purpose. (In fact, I suspect it was simply playing at the time and I overlaid my dream content with that from Moran Core).
On that basis, I had better be cautious about the material that I incorporate into the Procrastination Pen playlist or some of you may be having nightmares.
Today’s is another video drawn from a rich resource which we have covered before. This is the nursing student video, created as some element of their course. The clues are all present – domestic setting being the main one of course. In this case the use of a dining chair for the patient to sit on, we have seen a sofa even what appears to be the student’s own bed.
At just shy of eleven and a half minutes this is a nice length for one of the videos we commonly see. This one has no comments (phew) the downside of which is that we do not know if the ASMR community has happened across it as yet. (I would hazard a guess in the affirmative).
There are no notes – this happens with professional videos occasionally but more usually is a symptom of an amateur video as we have seen before.
The “patient” introduced as “Mr Evans” and the title of the video is:
S. Evans Thorax/lung Assessment
It is probably sensible to assume the husband of the medical professional involved.
Mrs Evans (I’ll guess that is who it is) starts a little loud.
Matthew Evans is the patient DoB 06/07/1984 (i.e. July in case you are reading this whilst located in the US or are using the US method of describing dates). So, if Matthew is the patient, S Evans must be the medical professional.
This is another one of the videos which has comedy “privacy” at the beginning – i.e. miming providing privacy when none is provided.
In fact, Matthew seems to have a better voice for our purposes than Mrs Evans does and fortunately he gets to talk a reasonable amount (he is subjected to a battery of questions). Interestingly there is no attempt to explore the answers which seems to show the student obeying some hidden checklist as to what has to happen in an examination, rather than using the information for anything useful.
Part way through a baby starts crying in a remote room, which is a tad distracting. I kept hoping that someone would go and find out what was wrong with the baby.
The channel is MGA Nursing, it has just forty subscribers which is to say the least odd. However, it has forty-three videos on it and all of them look to be medical examination videos – i.e. this is good news for us.
Fortunately, the videos are all labelled using an identifier for the medical professional. In this case we have a number of videos for S Evans.
The other videos for S Evans are as follows:
S. Evans Neuro Part 1
This is nearly sixteen minutes long and so it is a bit chunkier there are no comments and no notes so that might well be a theme for all of them.
Again, Matthew has a better voice but here we find out the medical professional is called Susan. Again, the “patient” Matthew is subjected to a barrage of questions and it is, again, not clear why.
Mrs Evans continues a bit loud; it is possible all of these videos will be marginal in terms of the Procrastination Pen playlist. I’m quite active in terms of weeding recently so we’ll see how long they last in the main list.
Susan seems to be consulting a checklist throughout the examination which reinforces the view that a series of steps have to be covered to comply with the purpose of the video (i.e. a requirement of the course in which Susan is involved).
We are quite fortunate in this video in that Matthew gets to talk a great deal more often and his voice is a much more restful one than his wife’s voice.
It is interesting to see Matthew fail some of the tests. This is something not seen before in one of these videos but, again, it isn’t clear what is going to be done about it.
S. Evans Neuro Part 2
This is much shorter at a little less than seven minutes. The setting is relocated to a domestic bedroom this time.
Again, it is a little loud to start. It is interesting that some of the vibration tests just do not seem to work (either that or Matthew is considerably more honest than some participants we have heard in the past).
During the actual examination things are a good deal quieter, however I still rate Matthew’s voice over Susan’s.
S. Evans Abdomen Assessment
This seems to be quieter at the start, there is the comedy privacy mime again, which this time occurs off camera. Again, Matthew is subjected to significant interrogation at the beginning.
At just over eleven and a half minutes this is similar in length to the first one we saw in this blog post. However, it is much better in terms of volume for us I think and makes a better candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist.
All in all, a more gentle examination than the ones that we have seen previously in this article.
S. Evans Eye Assessment
A little under eleven minutes and we are back to a dining room chair for the patient. Again, with the initial questioning. The great thing is that Matthew gets more time speaking.
However, at points Matthew is a bit loud which makes this less useful from an ASMR perspective.
After this one I am making some guesses because the video titles cease to contain any reference to S Evans. However, I believe that these videos contain the same two participants so I have included them below.
IMG 3025
I would say that this is the same two people, it is just less than nineteen and a half minutes long – but the standard of title naming seems to have been lost. This just looks like a default naming system used by a recording device such as an iPhone. So perhaps this was just uploaded from such a device and no modifications were made to it.
We are back to the bedroom as a setting. This is reasonably quiet and is similar to videos we have already seen in this article previously.
This, again, contains the baby crying which was so off-putting in the first one of this series. No one seems to jump and run, so potentially there is someone else in the house responsible for the baby’s care (or the baby is next door and has blast furnace bellows for lungs).
IMG 2916
Again, this is the same two participants. At the time the video is being shot we learn that although Obama is president Trump has started campaigning. Although Trump became president in 2017, he started his campaign in 2015. It is quite likely therefore the video was shot in 2016 which also fits with when it was posted (September 2016) so the dates line up. This time we have notes (perhaps to compensate for the absence of a useful video title): “26 Sept 2016
S. Evans. Physical Assessment- General Survey September 25, 2016”
Matthew also confirms the date.
The video is a little less than three minutes and so is a very brief one for us.
Matthew gets a reasonable amount of talking time which is good.
IMG 2934
This is slightly over four minutes so again is very brief. It has the same two participants and starts a little loud, I think. Again, Matthew gets to talk a reasonable amount. The actual examination is quite quiet and gentle.
There are baby noises in this one too, and this time the baby sounds to be in the self-same room that the participants are in. I’m assuming that someone nearby is doing the baby soothing, bouncing on knee, or what have you because neither of the participants seems at all bothered by this.
It does get to the level of loud in this one which I think is sufficiently distracting that this one cannot be included in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Assessment: Ears
The quality isn’t great here but I am making the guess that this is the same two people.
This is a little under eight minutes and so is back to a better length. It has a moderately quieter start than some of the previous videos considered.
Again, there are baby noises but the baby is back to a remote room. I think we can conclude that the baby is in the same house. But possibly not Susan or Matthew’s responsibility.
So overall more the “acceptable” rather than outstanding in terms of relaxation for sleep purposes. I’ll trial them in the Procrastination Pen playlist but the weeding of it continues apace so some or all of them maybe flushed out in a future weeding process.
The MGA Nursing playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
At the point of writing, I am now four months ahead in terms of written blog articles to those that I have managed to post. One of the aspects of this is that I notice a lot about the dynamic nature of YouTube and the problems with rendering something which is static (i.e. a blog) to cover something that is changing all the time.
Recently as I came to review an article ready to post it, I discovered that the entire channel it had been based upon had been removed. A search of the video titles in that article though revealed that other channels were now hosting the self-same videos. So, whilst the blog article could still be written, the nature of it had changed. Playlists were gone, the channels had changed. The idea of coming back for future reviews was dispensed with.
I fear therefore that even as I publish blog posts they are sliding into the past, referring to places, channels, playlists, even people who are no longer present.
I apologise if you find one of my posts which refers to empty space. I know that all the blog writing guidance indicates that a blog article is the shop window into my site and that it should be polished and up to the minute. Elegantly researched, delicately presented, ruthlessly targeted and so on.
Mine is not going to achieve such pinnacles of God-like wonderment.
If you like it, I hope that you stick around and read some more.
If you don’t like it, then I am continually surprised at the many millions of blogs that do exist and the breadth of content that they represent. I hope that one of those alternative blogs will be a good fit for you.
Occasionally I come across blogs that are interesting (to me) and I will flag them. In just the same way that I am flagging video content from YouTube. Perhaps someone happening across this blog on their journey through the Internet may even find it useful.
Today’s video is from a channel that we have explored a great deal. It again features a very young person. And reinforces the view (I think) that people are much more careful in their handling of the small person in comparison to the fully fledged large person.
This leads me to suspect that videos featuring small people could, potentially be a source of material for this blog. It is not as if age of the “patient” will be obvious when you are trying to get to sleep the as you will be listening rather than watching, however the attitude of the medical professional is, it seems, more likely to be gentle.
Head and Neck-Jasmine
Here we have a medical professional Jasmine who is dealing with someone who is quite early in life. I am terrifically poor at estimating ages but I’ll make a guess at four or possibly five (earlier would not surprise me, much later probably would).
The video is twelve minutes-ish so a pretty standard length for videos we have covered recently. I believe the small person to be called David and David could probably win awards for the best voice heard recently.
The medical professional is a little loud to begin with (which ruins my theory about dealing with young people).
David remains quiet, perhaps I should have been focusing on him rather than Jasmine in this case.
The video quality is towards the fuzzy end of focused, read 1980s straight-to-video kind of quality. However, as you will be listening rather than watching, I doubt that this will bother you that much.
The setting is domestic. There is a large display unit in shot and the two participants appear to be using what appears to be dining room chairs for the examination. This strikes me very much along the line of student videos that we have seen of late.
The channel is one well known to us now which is MGA nursing – we’ve visited here a few occasions now and it remains a source of videos (if not the best ASMR videos we have encountered so far which I still contend is Hollie Berry.
We have established the protocol that once we browse MGA nursing, all other videos by the participants are fair game.
This is confounded in this case because Jasmine, and indeed David, feature in only one video on MGA Nursing and it is the one just covered.
I think therefore it is sensible to make this a short blog post and you can swiftly get back to the thousand things that need doing.
I hope you’ll come back and read the next one.
The MGA Nursing playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
I’ve realised that I could stop writing these for a period of many weeks as I have built up a bit of a backlog. Either that, or you will be subjected to them every day for a period of weeks. I have no doubt such an occurrence would cause even the most hardy Procrastination Pen reader to abandon the blog forever and flag any related emails as spam.
I am hopeful that, in fact, this means that I can keep on posting even when life makes it hard to write further articles. (This has happened before and no doubt could happen again).
Meantime, I continue trying to serve you new videos from YouTube which have some relaxing content (and which some people may consider to have ASMR effects).
We all realise that getting sufficient sleep is up there with getting your five a day (perhaps even more important).
I hope, therefore, that these small paragraphs dropping into your inbox every once in a while may provide some service towards easing your night-time passage into restfulness.
As always, if you are too tight on time to do much reading, scroll to the last paragraph where you will find the associated playlists.
My suggestion is to take the playlist URL, hop over to YouTube and watch using the shuffle function which randomises the video that you get to watch.
Today’s video is forty-six and three quarter minutes which is quite long in the recent videos we have covered. Although not the longest ever covered thus far.
A tradition of videos has developed on the Procrastination Pen of late in that a number of student assessment videos posted to YouTube (as the part of some course of study) have featured.
The clues to the student nature of this video are the domestic setting – double bed, bedside tables, soft cushions, accessories hanging on a rack on the wall.
The video is this one:
Head to Toe Assessment
It starts without music, hurray. The medical professional is Nikki Wilkins and she sounds like she can barely be bothered to participate (which might be the case of course).
The “patient” seems to be Luke it could be that the surname is Lucas but that is alliterative and so unlikely. The date of birth is in US format so 10/29/97 translated is 29/10/97 so October.
Nikki has some kind of identity badge which might give away the institution of study but it is tiny and so unlikely much can be made of it.
The presentation does not stray into loud, which is great for our purposes. The absence of huge chunks of hospital equipment allays fears of bangs and clangs resulting from moving them around.
Unusually for a student video this one has notes associated with it:
“29 Nov 2020
head to toe assessment assignment – student nurse health assessment performance”
There are also comments. As expected some of these are ASMR-related. As expected some are unhelpful, so far so usual for videos permitting comments.
Of course they have their own YouTube channel with two hundred and ninety eight videos at the time of looking.
Luke appears less than fully interested, which several commentators have commented upon. Part way through he starts yawning. I’m assuming at no stage is the assessment process of interest to him.
Nikki fortunately seems more engaged the further through the assessment that we go. There are moments of humour and moments of hesitation, so far, so normal student video.
The channel is Nikki Wilkins and has only three videos and yet has two thousand subscribers. I can only imagine that hordes of ASMR fans have located this before me and are camped around eagerly watching.
The first video we covered above, the second is substantially shorter at just over fifteen minutes:
CLABSI Project
CLABSI is central line bloodstream infection – an infection originating from introduction of a catheter and is habitually a serious infection.
This is a presentation – it looks like a presentation that Nikki presented and prepared. it is really not that useful from a ASMR perspective. However, I’m sure it is interesting to any medical professionals who are watching it.
Again, it has notes: “2 Dec 2021
This is a group project upload for my nurse leadership class. It is a quality management project that focuses on Central Line Associated Blood Stream Infections (CLABSI) and their impact on hospitals.
Thanks to my group members!”
The final video seems to be a shorter version of the first video we saw – with the same participants:
Head to Toe Assessment
Again, there are notes: “7 Dec 2020
30-minute head to toe assessment for nursing school – student nurse health assessment
Final submission for my head-to-toe health assessment class!”
The location appears to be the same as for the first video covered in this article. The camera though appears more remote. This is unlikely to impact us as most likely you’ll only be listening, and apart from this one occasion, so will I.
If anything, there seems more background noise than in the first video which could be due to air conditioning, although the recording quality is less flat than some we have heard.
Luke appears more engaged in this one – or perhaps I am just getting used to Luke. Nikki is as hesitant as she was in the first one. I get the impression (as I always do with student videos) that students have to cover a number of specific points. This often leads to the video becoming like a moving checklist of medical terms and testing performed.
It is so similar, in fact, to the first video that there might be limited purpose in both of these videos having a home in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
However, I am in generous mood so I’ll add the two videos on this occasion but it is more than likely a subsequent weeding operation will remove one of them from the playlist.
The Nikki Wilkins playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
A minor deviation in terms of videos this week. Still on a medical theme, so I have not wandered too far from the fold. However, this one is for people involved in sports. Presumably an area with a great propensity towards injury, given there is an entire discipline dedicated to it.
The video is this one:
Examining The Wrist: A Guide for Sports Physicians and Physiotherapists
As we have established previously professional videos have a higher tendency towards having associated notes. We’ve also established that within a playlist on a channel of this type all the notes have a tendency to follow a theme.
The notes with this video state “
199,898 views 10 Dec 2013
Roger Hawkes, Chief Medical Officer, European Tour Performance Institute, and Doug Campbell, Wrist and Hand Surgeon, Leeds Teaching hospitals NHS Trust, guide you through examining the wrist.
Having studied the wrist on the European Tour (golf) for the last four years, they show the simple tests to use in day-to-day practice, and the common pathological findings.
– Assessing stability of the distal radial ulnar joint (9.22)
– The extensor carpi ulnaris tendon (10.27)
– De Quervain’s tendonitis (13.00)”
The video permits comments and there are a number of those. As expected, ASMR fans are here well before me. I wonder if there is some secret channel where all of these videos are already listed and I am merely repeating in an amateur fashion the indexing work of some ASMR-associated professional.
The video is slightly over fifteen minutes, so not huge, and it has the bugbear of all ASMR fans, startup music. Worse, energetic startup music. This is not immediately a video designated to assist you off to sleep. The first presenter Roger Hawkes Chief Medical Officer European Tour Performance Institute starts off a bit loud. Whilst he is talking the music is still hanging in there like yesterday’s intransigent flu symptoms.
The second Presenter is Doug Campbell Consultant Hand and Wrist Surgeon Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
As soon as Doug starts to speak, we feel we are on a surer footing ASMR-wise as he has a substantially more gentle voice. If only the start of the video hadn’t been ambushed by marketing and brand identity.
Still, we have given videos a try with more challenging beginnings.
At one and a half minutes into the video the examination begins and for me the entire video should have begun here. It would then have been much more suitable for ASMR. However, so far I have not found a setting for truncating videos so that the startup nonsense can be dispensed with.
As expected, the portion of the video in which Doug appears is much more relaxing than the portion in which Roger presents.
For ASMR purposes it would be great to take the video and chop out of it the extraneous loud bits. However, I do not own it, and so sadly we’ll have to run with it as is.
There are twelve playlists and a number of those contain only one video.
Our video is contained in one of these, a playlist called Examining the wrist.
Checking through the remaining one hundred and thirty four videos we find that neither Doug, Roger nor the “patient” appear in any further videos on the site, so it appears this is the only one this week.
Why not use the time to get some more sleep.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
Recently I had occasion to browse YouTube using a smart TV. The app for YouTube browsing turns out to be a cut down of the version available via a web browser. For a start the shuffle function does not exist, the ability to skip adverts does not crop up and it took some searching to find the Procrastination Pen channel at all.
However, I am pleased to report that despite all that, the playlist still stands up pretty well even when forced to play each video in order. Some of those early videos have become like old friends now.
It also gave me the chance to identify the odd one that is ripe for weeding and push it over into the archive list – by this mechanism does the main Procrastination Pen playlist keep being refined and improved.
Today’s video is this one:
Head-to-Toe Assessment NR 304
Comments are permitted and we can see that ASMR fans have already been here and done that. NR304 turns out to be a nursing exam. The online references to it appear to come from Chamberlain University College of Nursing but that is not to say it is the only university to offer it.
The video is twelve and three quarter minutes long so a good average length for a medical examination video. And this seems to be again another video produced by students as part of their course. (we have a great deal of experience of this now and the results can be somewhat variable).
There is some background noise. There are conversations happening nearby both are quite distracting.
The medical professional is “Nadia”. She has a great voice which is somewhat overshadowed by the other conversations just off camera.
The “patient” is Jackie Santiago (almost certainly misspelled) with DoB 6/9/97. However, thereby is a trap for the unwary, this is the US dating system so almost certainly 09/06/1997, so June therefore.
Each of the participants has a tunic with a crest on it which is just a little too fuzzy for me to make out the name of the institution.
However, the Chamberlain University College of Nursing has a very similar logo.
So it could be that this is the location.
Chamberlain appears to be in Addison Illinois and unsurprisingly it has its own YouTube channel.
This is filled with the kind of promotional videos we have come to expect from such channels.
The channel is Nadia Hussain. This has just one video posted there years ago at the time I am looking at it, yet despite this there are four hundred and two subscribers. This is quite amazing and possibly speaks to the ASMR-y nature of this video.
I would completely be in accordance with that if the extraneous noises were not punctuating this video. It is also a shame, given the nature of her voice, that Nadia did not post any further videos.
In the brief intervals where no conversations from elsewhere are overheard this is a very good video. It even lacks oppressive air conditioning noises (which is very rare as we know).
Sadly, there is no more from Nadia, she does not seem to have any other channel, so presumably she went on to make good her career and never looked back. Good luck Nadia, but very sad for us.
So until next time then.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
Some people have echoed the concern that the material to write a blog dedicated to ASMR is soon enough going to dry up and I shall come to an abrupt halt. Recently, however I have signed up to an ASMR group on Facebook. This group receives ASMR posts daily and a great many of them. It seems likely that there will always be ASMR material. It also seems that the popularity of ASMR isn’t going to wane in the short term. ASMR seems to have now been established as an interest for a sufficient time that I think it unlikely that this is a fashion or a fad.
What will perhaps be more challenging is the area I have chosen to explore, which is of ASMR-inducing videos where that was not the initial intent of the video. I find this a great deal more interesting, like uncovering a diamond in a coal mine.
It does mean quite a bit of work in sifting through the very many unsuitable videos. However, the mental reward when the like of Hollie Berry or Shane Brun are discovered does to some extent compensate for that. Although, unsurprisingly, there are many more videos which are not of that calibre.
Every once in a while, I will take a side route to illustrate videos that are not quite on theme but might be of interest. If, one day, I cease to discover new inadvertent ASMR there is always the world of professional ASMR to take a look at. It might even be that readers of this blog will encourage that direction, perhaps to advertise their own ASMR material, for example.
For now, I have another video to look at.
Head to Toe Assessment: Greta Garber
This is quite brief in terms of the videos we have looked at of late, at just over six and a quarter minutes.
The notes are informative: “18 Nov 2020
Head to Toe Assessment done by Greta Garber on November 18th for NSG 261 Skills Test #2”
NSG261 appears to be one in a series of exams with NSG262 and NSG263 material also being readily available in terms of study guides, quizzes, advice and so on. So it does not appear to uniquely identify a specific institution. Where colleges offer NSG courses these seem to be in relation to a nursing qualification, so it might be that NSG is just an odd abbreviation for nursing.
Greta Garber is the medical professional in this video, the “patient” is Audrey Stephens (almost certainly misspelled). Given this is filmed in 2020 it might have been when Greta was at Miami University.
Miami, of course has its own channel with around hundred and ninety-seven videos at the time I am looking at it. However, we have experience of university channels now and mostly they are about promoting the university (unsurprisingly) and experience tells us it is a poor source for ASMR material.
The address is given which sounds like “233 Gaslin”, but which almost certainly is nothing like that. Many of the commentators have mentioned that whoever is handling the camera probably had a bad cold that day, or at the least is used to breathing through their mouth. At times it sounds like someone trying to make a certain kind of telephone call.
The poster for Phi Mu turns out to be a “fraternity” at Miami. I’m not at all informed about what a fraternity would do or why they exist. This one seems to exist as a way to meet like-minded women, which amongst other things, seems to be involved in some charitable events. Perhaps that is why all fraternities exist. Interestingly, the word seems to originate with the term brotherhood, which makes its re-use as a term to define a group of women interesting. American websites seem to more typically use the term “Sorority” to define a group like this. I’m not sure of the ramifications (which could potentially be political).
Although it starts a bit energetically – it seems like it was quite hard to take it all seriously – the video settles down and becomes quite gentle (in places anyway).
The channel is Greta Garber there are four videos of which this one is by far the most recent. The others do not look very promising as ASMR candidates.
cheer winter
Given the music and photographic content I would say it is a nostalgic celebration of success designated for participants only. Definitely of no use for an ASMR video.
meniscus
well, the title is medical so it promises to be more interesting. The music at the start is a lot less so. It is slightly over two and a half minutes so really not very long. The video includes the channel owner and someone called Kayla, who on the face of it has a much better voice.
It was obviously filmed in the equivalent of a canteen with the background noise that we have come to expect from such locations. It then appears to move to a more medical room with a similar level of noise. There is the air conditioning unit running which could have doubled as a cooling plant at Chernobyl. It could have been a very good video in principle but I think it is more likely to keep you awake than lull you off to sleep.
VOTE GRETA GARBER FOR SECRETARY
Loud, so loud. Really not at all what we want to hear.
So that’s it. Not a huge one this time I’m afraid, but I’m sure that we will have next time another for your delectation.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
In a previous blog post I pointed out that there was a whole page of videos on the Internet that had no affiliation (that I could determine) to YouTube, and that therefore I was unable to embed in a WordPress page for viewing.
In addition, I felt that the videos could be better shown to you if I took them and uploaded them to YouTube on my channel. However, I am not a copyright expert, and in my amateur way rather thought some very well-paid people in threatening clothing might send me a formally-written letter if I tried it.
So I looked out for a contact email and found that the owner Dr Michael Koller had died. This is not only very sad but very regrettable in that I could not ask him if I could upload these videos to my channel on YouTube. I have approached Stritch via email, but each time I look at the website there seems to be another email to try and so to date I have not received permission (or a flat refusal) to use them.
The upshot is that the blog posts on this page tend to be a little dry as they are not dotted with friendly-looking embedded videos. However, given I habitually recommend that you go to YouTube to play the videos in my usual posts, and in this case, you simply have to go to the page to play the videos, there isn’t a great deal of difference.
I would feel that I wasn’t doing my part in telling you about the material that is out there if I simply limited myself to YouTube.
However, I don’t want to dwell too long on material that cannot be actively linked to (other than via URL) so although it will make this blog post a long one, I intend to cover off the remaining videos on that page in this blog post.
As part of this process, we satisfied ourselves that where there were complete and part videos under the same title. That the part videos were simply parts of that complete one. That is, you could get the material from all the part videos simply by watching the complete one. This will save time here; I can link the part videos for interest but cover only the complete videos. In addition, the included text files seem to only be of academic interest to those on the course for whom it was intended, so we have no need to review those.
15 Minute Screening Neuro Exam; Dr Michael Merchut
This starts quietly and thankfully devoid of startup music. The video is just over twelve minutes in length. Dr Merchut turns out to have a great ASMR voice, and had this been available on YouTube it would have been in the Procrastination Pen playlist. This is a loss to the list and to the ASMR community.
I’ll ignore the part videos as they have nothing extra to contribute. The complete video starts with startup music, which fortunately is neither too long nor too loud. Dr Merchut returns and gives a reasonably lengthy introductory speech. The entire video is a little over forty seven and a half minutes.
His voice is not quite so excellent in this one, but this is in comparison with the last one which was actually rather good.
Nancy again the “patient”. She featured in our previous blog post.
Again, I think if this video had been on YouTube, then it would have already been in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Again, I’ll focus on the complete video only. In this case it features Dr Koller. We know that we are on safe ground with Dr Koller, in fact we have already added one of his videos to the Procrastination Pen playlist from YouTube.
This also begins with startup music but this time it is really going for it. The video quality is also on the abysmal side of poor. The sound has the normal background we would expect by now (air conditioning again).
The video is a little less than twenty-three and a half minutes. The initial presentation style is a little halting and, although this is the point of the video, it proves to be distracting.
Dr Koller is doing the narration which is great but somewhat intermittent (more narration by Dr Koller would be welcome as he has a good voice).
The music then kicks in again at breaks in the video. The sound has a metallic edge to it.
Although Dr Koller is as good as we are used to, the way the video is structured makes it more stimulating than anyone really needs when they are trying to get to sleep. Even if it were possible, I do not think that this one would be finding its way into the Procrastination Pen playlist.
This time just one video available, again with Dr Koller. This is just less than twenty-five and a quarter minutes and thank goodness there is no startup music. There is an ever-present air conditioning background drone though.
Dr Koller still has a good voice for our purposes. In this case though, I’m not certain the subject matter is that fascinating to anyone who isn’t in the medical profession. However fascinating is not that useful in getting off to sleep so this video might be a great fit.
Part way through we have loud clunks due to equipment noises (metal drawers being pushed in and out), just the kind of noise to stir someone from sleep as they were dozing off.
A great deal of thought has gone into the positioning of gowns and drapes in this video and apart from equipment noises, it is a good video for us. It’s a shame about the equipment as otherwise it would have been a great Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (well had it been on YouTube in any case).
Full Body Skin Exam; Estelle Kahn MS4 and Dr Anthony Peterson
In this case there is no “complete” video, so no choice other than to review each in turn.
Unfortunately, there is start up music and it is really dynamic stuff too. Estelle initially does not have a true ASMR voice, sometimes this happens when the person is presenting rather than examining someone however.
This introduction is a little over four minutes in length. If you are watching it is slightly distracting that Estelle seems to be reading a script which is slightly off camera.
I’m pretty sure that even had I the opportunity, this one would not be in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
It starts with door opening noises which are a little distracting. We see this in student assessment videos of course, soft-close not being a thing in medical establishments.
Dr Peterson has an excellent voice. He might be worth checking for elsewhere in case there is other material available. As expected, Estelle’s voice is much more muted during the examination. The examination is gentle and methodical and the whole video lasts only a little under nine and a quarter minutes. There are occasional equipment noises, equipment not having been designed to slide quietly in use apparently. All-in-all it is quite a good video. If it had been on YouTube this would be a strong Procrastination Pen playlist candidate.
Dr Peterson presenting and this is great as he has by far the better voice for us. There is no startup music – yay. There are occasional loud moments; watch the volume. Dr Peterson appears to be consulting notes at intervals, although if you’re just listening you will not notice that. The whole video is somewhat under three and a half minutes. This would’ve been a good Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (had it been on YouTube).
Reviewing the complete video again, the entire video is thirty-seven and a quarter minutes. It starts with some positively starship enterprise style music; very grand; very distracting. Straight away we seem to be in the soundscape of a public area, there is some kind of hubbub in play. Dr De Stefani is narrating this one. He does not have as good a voice as Dr Peterson sadly. There are telephone noises which Dr De Stefani has to talk over.
When the examination of the baby commences it quietens down a great deal. Of course with examination of a baby, the baby starts to complain about it. Not substantially so though. In fact, this was a good baby to choose as she appears to be so chilled under examination. After a while she does lose patience and lets us have it crying wise.
Background medical establishment noises continue; a repeating electronic beep sound at one stage, sounds of other babies at some distance who are a bit less chilled, muted conversations from adjacent rooms, distant equipment noises, an occasional telephone and of course the continuous accompaniment of air conditioning noises.
Although this is in part a great video, I think these distracting noises would discount it from the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Definition:
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: effects that occur as a result of a mother drinking (alcohol) while pregnant.
Just the one video to look at a little over twelve minutes and it starts with startup music and there is a constant background hiss happening as if the entire thing was recorded on an LP and then poorly stored.
For some reason after a minute that hiss disappears entirely. Dr Sterling does not have a natural ASMR voice but by no means the worst that we have heard.
The delivery is measured and even and accompanied only by the hmm of air conditioning.
It’s sad about the start as otherwise this could have been a good video for us.
Looking at the complete video then, it is just under twenty five and three quarter minutes. Dr Lento has an impressive voice, impressive in its volume I mean. After the start-up music it is quite surprising to find the voice of the presenter louder than the music.
The “patient” is Sal – or that is what it sounds like. The volume also exposes the metallic sound to the audio track which we encountered with a previous video in this blog article.
This video really isn’t a suitable one for our purposes.
Only one video to review, eleven and three quarter minutes and again with the startup music. The videos are now starting to fall into a theme. Dr Bill Hopkinson who immediately has a better voice for us. He is quieter, more measured in expressing himself but he does attempt to compensate for that with the loudest washing of his hands I have encountered thus far.
We encounter Sal again as the “patient” – they obviously had him around and so were going to make good use of him. This one seems to have less background noise, certainly less hiss than encountered in previously videos in this article.
The actual video quality is no better though, not that I suspect you would be watching in any case.
PCM2 Musculoskeletal Provocative Exam; Dr Neeru Jayanthi
In this case there is no “complete” video so there is no choice other than to review each video in turn.
Less than three quarters of a minute so do not blink. Dr Neeru Jayanthi who on the basis of this amazingly brief video has a good voice for our purposes. Eric is the “patient” here. There was still time to sneak in introductory music (boo), although the background noise for some reason is a great deal more muted in this one, probably not enough here for me to consider it for the procrastination pen playlist.
Just a bit more than three and a quarter minutes – none of these are winning any length contests. This would be a good candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist if it ever appeared on YouTube (hint Stritch hint).
Just less than one- and three-quarter minutes probably not long enough for any playlist, in fact the way these are going it would be better to combine them into one long playlist – which I sense is probably how it was filmed in the first place and then they were divided up for (presumably) educational purposes.
Just over one- and three-quarter minutes, again no extraneous noises and a good presentation. A good combination of these videos would make one good one for the Procrastination Pen playlist – assuming anyone uploaded it to YouTube.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.
The Procrastination Pen 
